


Big Business

by comixologist, Ryuutchi



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon, Gen, On Hiatus, Plotty, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2010-11-07
Updated: 2010-11-08
Packaged: 2017-10-13 03:01:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/132086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comixologist/pseuds/comixologist, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryuutchi/pseuds/Ryuutchi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winchester brothers notice an odd pattern of demonic possessions cropping up around the Roadhouse. When they go to investigate,it becomes clear that they've bitten off more than they can chew, and Sam makes some new "friends" in the demon-catching business.</p><p>Originally posted in February of 2007. Diverts from canon around Season 2, Episode 14, "Born Under a Bad Sign".</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. [one]

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to jadecanary for beta-editing.

The phone call didn't take more than three or four minutes, but it seemed like a lifetime. Gordon cast sidelong glances at the guard standing nearby between answers, waiting for the bored-looking man to get suspicious, but the man just stroked his baton and passed him a look that said 'get this over with already' without actually saying a word. Gordon rested his hand on the rough concrete wall, focusing his attention on the dingy green phone and purposefully blocking out the bars and locked doors surrounding him. They were too distracting.

"--a Hunter too?" the person on the other end of the phone was saying. "I thought Hunters stuck together." The voice was dry, crisp and utterly androgynous, hints of a carefully cultivated accent curling around the edges of syllables. "You know our company doesn't specialize in these sorts of matters."

Gordon licked his lips, a quick nervous motion and frowned harder when tongue encountered the still-healing cut on his lower lip. "I know that's not what you specialize in. But he's got more talents than that," he carefully emphasized the word 'talent'. "Research him. You'll see that he's exactly what I say he is. My usual recommendation stands." The guard began to frown, standing a little straighter and actively listening in on the conversation.

On the other end of the phone there was a pause, and after a moment's consideration the genderless voice gave Gordon his affirmation. "We'll look into it. You've done good work with us in the past, and we'll remember this recommendation if it proves fruitful." The guard eyeing Gordon arched an eyebrow, looking without approval at the weasel-y looking man on the phone. Gordon, since his arrival not long ago, hadn't managed to earn any points with him by causing trouble with the other prisoners and giving him more to clean up after.

"Hurry it up," the guard barked, irritation in his voice as he looked pointedly from Gordon to the clock on the wall.

The muted voice asked Gordon in polite but scripted tones if there was anything else he'd be interested in reporting, and if he would be available for future transactions in the Midwest.

"I will soon," Gordon responded, glaring right back at the guard. Idiot who didn't know anything about real criminals. "Don't call me for anything for at least a month." He hated to acknowledge that he'd got caught, but he was being charged with concealed carry and possession of illegal firearms while the police decided whether or not to charge him with the murder of the demon-boy. He hung up the phone without waiting for a response and turned back to the guard, who nodded his head down the hallway and set his hand with exaggerated menace on his baton again. Gordon bit back an explosive sound if annoyance and let the guard 'escort' him back to the tiny cell he was occupying for the moment.

He was hardly planning to wait around for a sentence to be passed out; the first thing Gordon had done when he got arrested was to call in back up. He'd be out in no time at all. But he wouldn't have to worry about paying little Sammy Winchester back for the insult. Smart as the boy was, the baby demon had this coming. The Agency would take real good care of him, like they did of all the demons Gordon had pointed them towards.

The officer shut the sliding cell door with an overenthusiastic clang, and slid the locking bolt home.

* * *

Sam slid down in the Impala's passenger seat, laptop open on his knees. "'Cording to this, something may've just popped up," he said, brows rising with surprise as the webpage auto-updated. He loved when they drove through cities large enough for wireless towers. "Day before yesterday, some kid went Psycho on his girlfriend. Says when he was apprehended, he claimed it wasn't her - that her eyes were completely black, but when the M.E. got her they were baby-blue."

Sam shot Dean a glance out of the corner of his eye, to see if his brother was listening at all or just going on mouthing song lyrics. "It's also only about twenty miles south-east of Ellen's place."

"So we stop at the Roadhouse, and see if Ellen's heard anything interesting." It was a sucker's bet that she had, and Dean gunned the engine, singing along, badly, to some bad 80s rock band or other that Sam couldn't name. Sam went back to his computer, following a few links and trying to dig up more information on the guy, but not much came up, and soon Dean had driven them out of the city and out of range of the lovely wireless towers. Sam couldn't help pouting at the computer.

It didn't take them more than another few hours to pull into the lot in front of Harvelle's Roadhouse and, once they got inside the door, Ellen already had beers out on the counter for them.

Sam had never bothered to wonder how she always knew when they were coming. Dean would say it was something like maternal instinct, or woman's intuition, or some other kind of bullshit like that. Dean turned on his ever-charming grin and sauntered up to a barstool.

"Hey, Ellen," he purred, showing off a perfect row of wicked-white teeth.

"They ain't on the house, Dean," was her stern response, and immediately Dean dropped his grin. "Gee, thanks," he muttered, and took a long swing off the bottle of PBR. How Sammy and Ash drank the stuff and were happy about it, he'd never know.

Sam ducked into the bathroom before joining Dean at the bar and pulling out his computer. He set it off to the left (nothing worse for a keyboard than beer-spills) before clanking the neck of his beer-bottle against Dean's and taking a swig of his own.

He glanced at his computer and then at Ellen's tight expression. "Ellen, have you heard about anything--" Sam didn't even get the chance to finish his question before Ellen had turned and grabbed a folder from the small shelf next to the multi-hued bottles of alcohol. She lay it out in front of them and the look in her eyes was worried.

"I'm going to trust you boys to take care of this one. I don't want a demon operating this close to the Roadhouse." She looked Dean straight in the eye and something passed between them, a silent acknowledgment of the responsibility and pain that came from letting the Winchesters get into the path of a demon, any demon. "Ash has been tracking it's progress and it's been body-hopping towards us in the past month.

Dean's mouth twisted, but instead of saying anything, he grabbed for the file with one hand, taking a swig of his beer with the other. Sam got to the file first, though, slamming his hand down onto it and jerking the thin sheaf of papers towards himself.

"Sammy," Dean said, brow knitting.

"Deal with it, commune without words some more or something," Sam said, wagging his beer bottle between Dean and Ellen, flipping the folder open. He didn't catch Ellen's glare, which was probably a good thing, as it alone was believed to have the power to scare good Midwestern boys, demons, and vampires all the way down to hell and back.

Reading through the information Ash had been able to gather, Sam frowned and hunched over the counter in more intense concentration.

"He's got terrible posture," Ellen observed, knowing full well that Sam probably wasn't paying attention to what she was saying. He was just like any other teenager (didn't matter that he was technically out of his teens one bit), always tuning out his authority figures.

"Oh, yeah," Dean said, nodding, "And he's got a lip on him, too. Never listens to a word I say."  
"Funny, I've got one like that," Ellen mused.  
"Aah, kids these days. Nothin' but trouble."  
She shot Dean a dead-on glare, almost smirking behind it as she put her hands on her hips. "I'll say."

Sam glanced up and shoved one of the articles towards Dean. "Enough with the love-fest." He was still flipping through the odds and ends tucked neatly into the folder, lower lip poking out in concentration. "This is weird. Demons don't usually do serial possession this way. It must be up to something. I think we need to ask the last victim. There are a few things the possessed tend to have in common, and one of those is similar experience right before the possession experience."

"So we know that if the victims had similar experiences, we might be able to track it down." Dean smiled broadly at his brother and clapped him on the shoulders. "We'll do that tomorrow. Ellen, get my baby brother another beer, would you?"

The older woman just shook her head in wry amusement and left them to their discussion. Neither of them needed an audience, even if Dean did like to grandstand when someone was around.

"Well," Sam said, jerking his chin towards his computer, "the most recent living victim, anyway." The two-day-old dead body that brought them back by the bar probably wouldn't be as much help as someone who could still breathe. He took another swig from his bottle and shut his laptop down. Once the screen went dark, he slid it back into his shoulder-bag and set the bag on the floor. "I'll get addresses tomorrow morning, and we can head out after we get some eggs or something."

Dean gave Sam a little nod, nursing his drink and wondering why the hell Sam would feel it necessary to plan things that intuitive. Unless he still hadn't gotten over the time with the waitress and the digital camera.

Dean figured he probably shouldn't push that one right then, so he clapped a hand on his brother's back.

"Drink up, Sammy. Don't want your second round to get warm, do ya?"  
"I can't have too much to drink," Sam protested. "We have to get up in the morning, if we wanna get done what needs doin'."

Dean laughed, a grin lighting up his face when Ellen returned with beers and a pair of shots (always anticipating her customers' needs, she was). Sam looked from his brother to the liquor and sighed. The next morning, he knew, Dean was going to be a handful. And it wouldn't be good for anybody if they had matching hangovers when the alarm went off bright and early.

Well, that had been the plan, anyway.

* * *

Bright and early the next morning became sometime after noon. Dean wasn't a morning person unless he had to be, what with the 'running around all night' part of their job. Sam had to some serious ass-kicking to get Dean out of bed by eleven, and by the time they'd gotten into the city it was already lunch and the sun was high and bright enough that the pair could almost pretend that they weren't looking for some bump-in-the-night beast. Sam handed Dean a neatly printed list with three names and addresses, the demon's victims in the order they'd been possessed.

"We should do this chronologically," Sam said, circling their destinations on a map as he spoke. "Which makes Madeline Rice our first stop, since she's most recent... and, uh, still breathing." Sinking back in the passenger seat, Sam set himself to the task of determining appropriate cover-stories for each of the victims they planned to get in touch with. Rice was a single mother whose youngest had moved out of the house some two weeks before her possession.

Sam was figuring they should pose as detectives or beat cops, just going over the facts one more time - in case she remembered anything. When they pulled up the drive there was an SUV covered in college bumper stickers outside the garage.

"Looks promising enough."

Dean snorted and rummaged through the glove compartment until he found their stash of badges and IDs and tossed the appropriate one to his little brother. "Yeah." It always looked promising at first. But he let his game face slide into place and headed for the door. Sam was always a step or two behind his brother, so Dean didn't even bother to glance over to make sure Sam had an appropriately hangdog expression for the job.

The house was a tidy little Victorian, looking like nothing so much as a gingerbread house, so the boys could be forgiven for being a bit surprised by the appearance of the young boy who opened the door. He couldn't have been more than nineteen, and his hair was dyed a shade of violent green found only on Astroturf. Dean wondered idly how he ever got through metal detectors with the amount of metal adorning his face. "Hello. I'm Officer Ben Wachowski, and this is my partner, Officer Tony Vereen. We're here to ask your mother a few follow up questions. Is she in?" Dean could feel the tension beside him that meant Sam was pulling on his concerned-cop expression, puppy-face number thirty five. Sam, on the other hand, had to toss a glance sideways to make sure Dean wasn't smiling in that insensitive way he had. He was.

The boy's face went from wary to shuttered in nothing flat. "You can't talk to her," he said without inflection, fingers digging into the doorframe. He stepped forward a little bit, as though to block entrance into the house.

"Hey," Sam said, his voice smooth and rich and sympathetic more than anything else. "We know she's been through a lot, we just wanted to iron out a few more details, and then we promise we'll be out of your hair. Hey, maybe if she's not feeling well today, we can come back later? Or you might be able to help us, if she's talked to you?"

Sam's brows rose on his forehead, and those big green eyes of his shone with a pleading glow. Puppy-face number thirty five was one of his best.

He nudged Dean to one side with his elbow to get him to step back. If they boxed the kid in he might slam the door in their faces. Not that he wouldn't as it was, but sometimes Dean was just too happy to do a little breaking and entering.

The boy looked uncertainly from Sam to Dean and back again, the stony-face expression slowly buckling beneath the weight of Sam's wide and worried eyes and Dean's stern expression. "No, I mean you can't," he insisted, fingers scrabbling at the doorframe. He wanted to close the door on their faces, but it was clear for anyone to see that he was scared out of his wits. "She's-- mom, I mean, she's, she checked herself into Rosewood three days ago. She kept saying that--." He cut himself off, trying for a glare that nearly shattered into a million shards of terror and despair.

"Hey, hey," Sam reached out a hand, not touching the boy, but letting it rest an inch or so away from the kid's shoulder. "We didn't know." He tried to measure his words, not sure how much information they could actually get out of the kid, but Dean beat him to it.

"Do you mind if we ask you a few questions, then?" Dean leaned in a little, around Sam. His concerned looks usually ended up more smarmy and less sincere, but he still had his badge case out, and the boy's eyes rested on it for a moment before he nodded. He turned to let the 'officers' into the foyer, and Dean smirked up at his brother.

Like the outside of the house, the foyer and living room were neat and clean, with an air of something that might be termed "maternal", or even "grandmotherly". "Sorry. I'm still not used to handling mom's stuff. And she's been a little weird since, well, since she went on that weird rampage. I swear, I've seen more cops the past month than I ever have my entire life! I'm Greg Rice, by the way."

"Sorry we're meeting you under these circumstances," Sam said soothingly, as the three of them found places to sit on various pieces of comfortable, well-used furniture. "Let's just start at the beginning. You were out of town when the rampage happened, is that right?" Sam pulled out a notepad and pen, but still managed to make himself seem approachable.

Dean leaned forward where he sat, resting his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands. "We'll need to know how you heard about it, what you were told, and if you recall hearing anything out of the ordinary from your mother in the days before the incident."

Sam was already scrawling out in big capital letters "ROSEWOOD" - it was a private mental institution not too far away, but appropriately secluded that it'd be difficult to add the stop to their list for the day.

Greg nodded, wrapping his arms around himself defensively. "I was at college when it happened, but Stacey, that's mom's best friend, she called me when mom snapped. Said something about mom having totally black eyes, which is dumb, since mom has brown eyes, but, she called to ask me to come back and find out what was wrong." He rocked back a little bit in his overstuffed armchair and licked his lips. "I came home," he paused, self-consciously smoothing out wrinkling on the arm of the chair. "I didn't get back until it was over and she had wrecked up her store. I'm glad she only destroyed her own property-- it sucks, but at least no one's going to sue her or anything. And no one was hurt. I mean, she came close to beating Mona-- that's her assistant-- but she didn't. No one got hurt." Greg took a deep, shaky breath. "She hasn't been the same since. She kept talking about the 'Agency' and the 'light behind her eyes' or something."

Dean glanced to one side as Greg spoke, nodding. "Had she ever spoken about anything like that before, that you remember?"

Sam scribbled the keywords down furiously. Agency with a capital A - he'd heard it in the kid's voice - along with a light behind the eyes. "And did Stacey tell you if she said any of those things while her eyes were discolored?" Sam asked, not looking up from his notes.

"Her pupils may have been dilated, it happens occasionally during some types of outbursts," Dean said in a smooth, stern tone that he meant to be reassuring.

Sam's mind was already going. There were very few things that would cause a Demon to babble on about light, and it set his stomach into a tight knot. None of them were good things.

Nodding nervously, Greg said "I guess so. I just know that Stacey said she was saying stuff like that before I got home to. And she kept on saying it. She checked herself into Rosewood because she said she wasn't sure she could keep herself from trying to cut the-- cut the light from behind her eyelids. I don't know." He spread his hands helplessly. "I don't know. I'm still trying to figure out what's going on with my mom. She owned her own business, she had good friends, she was healthy. She had everything going for her." The boy made a choked sound and jerked his arms back in, not looking up at Sam or Dean.

Sam pinned his brother with a glare before the he could let loose one of his stupidly insensitive comments. "Thank you, Greg. I'm sorry to have brought all this up, but you've helped a great deal."

Sighing, Dean pushed himself to his feet. "We won't take any more of your time. C'mon, uh, Tony."

Dean had almost slipped and called his brother by his real name, which was sloppy of him, but that's why it was 'almost'. He was frustrated, and this just didn't add up right. The demon had to have been damaged to do a number like that on Madeline Rice's brain, to leave her with its own issues with light. If she was continuing to see light, that was even more disconcerting. Dean had liked this whole case better when he knew it was just some demon making tracks. But this thing, it wasn't acting like demons normally did.

"Listen, man," Sam said as he stood, moving to shake Greg's hand. "You got somebody you can talk to here in town, or on the phone? Any other relatives to help you with takin' care of the house and your mom?"

Dean rolled his eyes.

"I, uh," Greg began, but Dean elbowed Sam sharply in the ribs.

"Let's let the poor kid get back to dealing with his problems, huh? Come on," Dean interrupted. The 'you pussy' wasn't said, but Sam could hear it hanging in the air. There was just something about the way Dean's mouth formed words that he could let insults like that slip out without actually voicing them, although that might have been the way Dean's lips were twitching with a sardonic smile.

Once Greg had escorted them back out, apologizing that he couldn't be more help all the way, Sam punched Dean in the ribs. "I was just trying to help him," he grumped, and Dean snickered at him. "I was! Guy doesn't have any idea what happened to his mom. He probably needs someone to talk to."

"Doesn't mean you need to be his shrink," Dean snorted, looking back over his shoulder to see Greg watching them go. "Unless you were maybe hoping for a slumber party. With those Lifetime movies and painting each others' toenails or some shit," he snickered.

"Shut up, Dean," Sam grumbled, scowling across the top of the Impala at his brother. "He could be in serious trouble, he's obviously upset."

Sam shook his head, glancing back up at the house and lifting one hand to Greg and giving him a nod. Seemed like a nice kid. Shame he had to be stuck in the middle of this. "You wanna try and hit that mental hospital?"

Sam sulked his way into the passenger seat, kicking one foot up onto the dash and folding his arms over his chest.

* * *

The rest of day came and went with little new information presenting itself. The doctors at Rosewood were gracious to the government inspectors who came to check up on Madeline Rice, but she screamed when she saw Sam and didn't even seem to notice Dean. The victim who had come before her, Kelly Hamber, simply shut the door in Dean's face. There was no way into the tiny, one-room apartment and, according to the super, she'd all but locked herself up in there.

Dean groaned and handed Sam a burrito, taking a big bite of his own and leaning against the side of the Impala, free hand absent-mindedly petting its smooth, gleaming curve. "Well, that was a whole lot of nothing. Apparently this demon makes them see a light, and then lock themselves up. What kind of demon does that? Sloppy."

"I know," Sam said, around a mouthful of food. His manners were going downhill at an unnerving rate since he started hunting again. "It's almost as if the Demon is looking for attention, or something. I mean, there wasn't even a fatality until the most recent, and that was self-defense. Accidental on the part of the Demon is what it looks like, but even that doesn't make any sense." Shaking his head, Sam flipped through his notebook. "I mean, this whole thing, the Demon's behavior, the state of the people it leaves, it's like it's... I don't know, we need to sit down with this and Dad's journal and see if we can't find anything there."

Dean nodded, mouth too full of burrito to attempt an intelligible response.

"And this Agency thing, and... " Sam was still shaking his head, uneasy from what they'd learned and what was still baffling them from the visits they'd made that day. "We should go to Ash. Maybe he can run some analysis, find a pattern I can't. I just..." Sam gestured wildly with his dinner in one hand and the notepad in the other. "Why would she scream when she saw me?"

"Maybe she thinks you need a haircut, kiddo."  
"Oh, shut up, Shaggy."  
"Yeah, whatever, Scooby."  
"Look, let's just... ugh. Let's go back to the roadhouse tonight, talk over what we've got so far, and check out our third guy in the morning."

Dean nodded and put the car in drive.


	2. [two]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Winchester brothers notice an odd pattern of demonic possessions cropping up around the Roadhouse. When they go to investigate,it becomes clear that they've bitten off more than they can chew, and Sam makes some new "friends" in the demon-catching business.

Evening and morning passed without bringing the pair any more enlightenment than the day before. Sam stared out at the neatly trimmed suburban landscape whizzing by the car, and chewed listlessly on a stale blueberry muffin swiped from a plate in the motel lobby. "Ash couldn't find anything either," he groaned, closing his eyes and resting his head against the window. "There's no connection between the four victims that he could find, no references to any group called the 'Agency', no 'light behind the eyes'." Sam lifted his head off the window and thumped it back down again.

"Don't break the window, hardhead," Dean responded without looking away from the road. "We'll talk to the last guy-- what's his name?"

"Aaron Carell."

Dean turned off onto a small, claustrophobic side street, past a wrought iron gate. "Right, him. We'll talk to him and maybe he'll actually give us useful information." At Sam's rolled eyes, Dean had to shrug. "A guy can hope. Hey, gated community, swanky. This time, let me go first, though. We don't want him to shut the door in our faces."

"My hair isn't that bad," Sam grumbled, running a hand through it as he pointed out the house to his brother. It was uncharacteristically dark for the neighborhood, and set alarms off for Sam. He shot Dean a worried glance which his brother returned, lips pursed.

The windows were boarded up, but the wood-grain was on the inside, keeping intruders, sound and light firmly outside. The lawn hadn't been mowed any time recently, and was collecting an abundance of onion grass and dandelions. Sam slid out of the car, half expecting to still smell the sulfur from the original attack. Whoever this guy was, the community meant he was pretty well off. From the look of the house now, though, Sam wasn't so sure.

"C'mon, Sammy, quit staring," Dean said in a gravelly rush of breath, before leading the way up to the door and knocking, sharply. After a few seconds, he knocked again, and from inside the house the boys could hear a scuffling sound. Impatiently, Dean rang the doorbell.

"Anybody home?" Sam called, "Police business."

The scuffling was closer next, and after a moment and one, two, three, four locks, a deadbolt and a chain, the door opened a quarter of an inch.

"Put your badges to the crack," a frightened voice demanded from just inside.

Dean grimaced, glancing at Sam, but nudged his brother out of the way to press his badge against the crack in the door. No light slipped out from behind the door, and Dean could barely make out the dim shape beyond, just a different texture of blackness. "I'm Officer Ben Wachowski. I just want to ask you a few questions." It didn't come out much like a request. Dean never could manage that softer tone Sam always seemed to acquire.

"I haven't done anything," the voice insisted, going high and sharp, the crack closing by a fraction of an inch before Sam pressed his hand against it to keep it from closing all the way. "Go away!"

Sam insistently pushed the door open a further and Dean leaned in, focusing on the man's eyes. They were all he could see, the whites luminous against the encompassing dark. "I can't do that," he repeated, "I need to ask you a few questions." Dean forced all of the urgency he was feeling deep in his gut into his voice. Sam, too, was pushing at the door, like this was their only chance to find the creature they were hunting.

Then again, it probably _was_ their only chance. Sam offered a smooth, reassuring tone of voice and a small smile as he wedged himself between Dean and the door. "We know you haven't done anything, sir. We just need to iron out a few details about what happened with you earlier, so that we can compare it to a similar case we found elsewhere. It's nothing that will take up too much of your time, but please, sir. We need to talk to you."

Hesitating, the man behind the door stopped, weighing his options. "You're not here for me?"

"No," Sam said, glancing back over his shoulder at Dean, telling him with a look to put on a concerned face, "Just to hear your side of the story again. We need to know... well," Sam paused, offering a reassuring smile. "May we come in?"

"Well. I. I suppose. But, not for very long. Only if you're very... brief." Aaron stammered slightly, having to track carefully to keep hold of his words and thoughts. After a long stretch of nothing he scurried back from the door, and allowed the two brothers entry.

Sam stepped through, half-expecting the door to squeal on its hinges when he pushed it open, and a little disappointed when it didn't. The room must have once been a nice living space with warm red walls, and watercolors hung in carefully-chosen positions. In the shadows the paint was a shade of maroon that sucked his eyes towards it, and the glass covering the paintings had been shattered. Well, no, not shattered, Sam realized with a start, but broken, as though someone had taken a hard object to each piece separately, grinding the glass nearly into a dust that didn't even reflect a miniscule amount of light. It wasn't just the paintings either, sad as they were, hanging crookedly on their nails. The television was gutted, spilling its plastic entrails out onto the floor, slivers of glass scattered around it. Books were strewn around, some open, some laying in haphazard piles, some with their pages torn out or their soft paper covers shredded and no longer able to give off so much as a hint of glossed shine.

The furniture had been up-turned, pressed and piled against the walls in odd barricades beneath the windows and against the thin light that tried to creep in under doors. As soon as both Sam and Dean were inside, Aaron shut the door with breathless urgency, fumbling in the darkness to secure the locks and again stifle out the outside light with a pile of couch cushions and pillows along the floor.

Following Aaron past the living room, Sam watched out of the corner of his eyes as Dean picked up a scrap of paper and slid it into his pocket. Sam shared a glance with his brother as they progressed down the hall, concerned and, in Sam's case, a little bit scared.

Dean paused in the small corridor, observing at what had once been a broad bay window that would have provided a view onto the drive and wide lawn. Now it was boarded up, dark red curtains (the color of dried blood, his overactive imagination provided) covering it further. He brushed the fabric away, and his fingers traced where someone, presumably Aaron, had meticulously nailed the wood into place so there were no gaps between it and the window frame. It felt as though the plywood had always been a part of that wall and the window hidden behind it was some kind of impossible dream.

Dean lengthened his stride to catch up with Sam and nudged him gently. He didn't say anything, didn't have to say anything when he pointed up. Sam had noticed it too. Not only were the windows were boarded, but every visible piece of glass was broken, and every light bulb had been removed. As they followed Aaron deeper into the gaping darkness, Sam's breathing quickened.

He didn't like this darkness, tugging at his insides. Dean would've said it was because he hadn't entirely gotten over his fear of the dark. Sam's stomach was churning as they made their way into the back room, his breathing rapid and shallow and struggling against the oppressive darkness.

Dean, it seemed, could see that Sam was uneasy. Placing a hand briefly on his spine, just between his shoulder blades, was the most that Dean could do at the moment. It was a passing touch, but it made Sam's breathing hitch and then settle.

Aaron led them to a room adjacent to the kitchen, probably meant for family dinners and nothing more. It was the only room they'd seen so far with undisturbed furniture, the four high-backed wooden chairs in neat array around a single dark wood table. It was the only room without a window, and almost pitch black. Sitting down, relieved, their host made a vague and fleeting gesture to the other chairs before wrapping his arms tightly around himself.

Sam took his seat first, pulling out his notebook and a pen, squinting into the darkness at the paper. "Mr. Carell," he began as he felt more than saw Dean settle into the chair on his right, "what do you remember about the day of your outburst?"

"The incident," Aaron corrected sharply. "I may have done some things that day but that wasn't me!"

"About the day of the incident, then," Sam said again, using his most soothing and measured tones.

Dean moved out of Aaron's line of sight as Sam asked his questions, rolling his eyes at the all-too-familiar puppy-dog approach. Sam ignored his brother, keeping up the wide-eyed and innocent look that helped him exude trustworthy, naive hopefulness. In the dimness of the room, the shadow that was Carell relaxed a little bit, leaning forward over the scarred and pitted dining room table. Dean was ignoring what he was saying, though, distracted by something Sam couldn't see. Dean fished out the scrap of paper he'd picked up, squinting at it and then the part of the table beside his elbow. Nodding slightly to himself, Dean tucked the scrap of paper back into his pocket and looked up at Sam.

"Honestly, nothing out of the ordinary happened that night," Carell was saying, when Dean finally turned his attention back to the conversation at hand. "I," he paused, tipping his head to the side, "I was sitting in the light, I just didn't know it. I mean," he caught himself, "that day. That day, when I was sitting in the dark. I really can't remember much. It keeps slipping away."

Leaning forward, Sam opened his mouth, trying to untangle the mess of words. "I'm not sure I understand you. Did you talk to anyone? Do anything out of the ordinary? Anything at all," he prompted and once again got nothing but a shake of the head.

"Nothing. Nothing," Aaron repeated. "Talked to a man, he came in selling sunshine in a necklace. Just a man in his van."

"Sunshine in a necklace?" Dean asked, his brow furrowed. His voice came in a low huff, the question really unbidden. He sounded skeptical, which made Sam shoot him a glare. The younger of the Winchester boys reached across the table, touching Aaron's arm and redirecting his attention. "Let me make sure I have this correct. That day was normal, and you were in your shop, as usual, and a man came in with something to sell. And it had light inside of it, is that right?" Sam was guessing whoever it was had some sort of flash device. "Can you tell me anything about the man? Was he... tall? Short? Fat or thin, old or young? Do you remember anything about _him_?"

Carell shook his head roughly, mouth setting itself into a thin line. "He was just a man, with a chart on his chest and light in his hands. It was so, so bright," he started, eyes going glassy and far-off. "So bright I have to shut it out, now, and it's still... still, too bright. The light from the Agency, just something they needed to pass on, he said, something warm and comfortable but it wasn't like sunshine, even, it was too bright even for that, white-bright and burning, brilliant perfect white spikes through my eyes and then it was all over. I just blinked to get the light out, but that didn't work, a-and --" Aaron stopped, abruptly. He shoved himself back away from the table, knocking over the chair he'd been sitting in, and stumbled back. Back pressed against the wall, he snarled, "I won't look at it again!"

Dean's hands went up immediately, "Woah, there, buddy! We're not going to turn on the lights, there," he said, eyes wide with surprise.

Sam cut in. "This man, you said he had a chart on his chest? Was he a delivery man?"

"He _delivered_ me and it burned, set me down before the eyes of God and it was _blinding_ -bright... yeah, he delivered me and the evil was inside of me and it's gone now, but the light brings it back and makes it burn all over again. I had to get it out of me," he stammered, turning his wild-eyed gaze back to Dean.

Dean grabbed for the bit of paper in his pocket. Six lines, arranged in an odd cross-hatch design, with dots, like points on a map or stars on a chart. He held out the piece of paper, standing up and moving closer to the terrified man, slow steps to keep from frightening him away. "A chart like this?" he asked. Dean didn't intend to sound threatening, but he was slipping between Sam and Aaron, voice dropping into a husky growl.

Wild-eyed, Aaron stared at the paper, then up at Dean, the whites of his eyes gleaming bright in the darkness. "I won't buy anything from you, not again. You can't take the darkness from me. The light burns too bright. I swallowed the fire for you, It burns my eyes black." He groped at the closest shelf, grabbing heedlessly, and coming up with a letter opener of black marble, and slashed it at Dean, forcing him to stumble back.

Sam jumped to his feet, grabbing Dean's collar and jerking him back, out of range of the second slice. "Please, Aaron, we just want to help."

"Tell your Agency to stay away from me! You drove the evil from me with that too-bright, white-hot light of God and it made me clean and this dark is mine and you can't take it! It's harmless and it's MINE," he howled, tears brimming in his eyes. He pressed his back against the wall and, when Sam made a tentative half-step towards him, kicked the chair he'd been sitting in, sending it flying towards the two boys.

"Take your stars to Hell with you, I won't sell my soul again!"

"Let's go," Dean blurted, shoving the paper back into his pocket and scrambling to get himself and his brother out of the way of anything else that might fly at them. Aaron hadn't stopped howling, his words warped beyond recognition by terrified sobs and rattling gasps.

"No, really, you think?" Sam snarled in frustration. "He knows more! We need to get through to him," he protested, shoving Dean off of him in the hallway and turning to head back into the small dining room.

"No, Sam!" Dean barked, commanding, and grabbed his brother by the back of his jacket, forcing him out into the living room. "We've got enough, we can come back when he's calmed down! Go get in the car!"

"But, Dean, --"

"I said _go_!"

Aaron made another screeching sound, something that might've been 'get away,' and the letter opener sank into the wall near Sam's shoulder with a heavy thud.

The brothers shared a look and half a second later they were both bolting down the hall, towards the front of the house. Aaron followed them angrily, shouting something about having had enough of the light. Sam's long legs got him to the front door first, and he threw it open wide before scrambling out. He nearly fell down the stairs he was moving so quickly, with Dean hot on his heels. Aaron wasn't interested in following them outside, it seemed, just in getting his door shut and blocking out the sunlight.

Once they'd caught their breath, the pair leaned against the Impala. Sam stared at the house thoughtfully while Dean fumbled in his pockets. "What do you think?" Sam asked, sliding into the car.

"I think he was nuttier than a fruitcake," Dean growled as he slammed the door. "Tell me what you make of this, though." He handed over the slip of paper he'd shown Aaron, pulling them out of the driveway and heading away from the darkened house. Sam accepted the scrap of paper, turning it over and peering at the lines scribbled across it in some vague pattern. "He'd carved it into his table too," Dean said sharply. "Gotta mean something, but I've never seen anything like it before."

Sam pursed his lips, turning the paper this way and that, letting the graphite lines catch the light. "It does look kind of like a chart. Or, I don't know. If you connect these lines," Sam said, doing it with a pen, "it looks like some sort of a summoning circle, or a Solomon's. This Agency thing has got to have something to do with the demon. Maybe they infected him?"

Dean gunned the engine. "With a demon? How's that even possible? And it doesn't explain the whole 'light of God' thing he was babbling on about, either." He sighed and grabbed a cassette, turning up the Best of Queen album. "Oh, so much better."

Sam raised his voice, over the first chords of Killer Queen. "I'd say it was like that virus, but they've all pretty much gotten better. Or at least, less violent," he said. Dean ignored his brother, tapping out the beat as he turned them onto the highway and shot them back towards Harvelle's.

* * *

Ash copied the symbol down with quick, strong lines, and pushed a lock of hair back over his shoulder. "It looks familiar," he admitted, holding it up to the light. Dean took a quick glance around the bar, but it was still early enough in the day that there were only a few other hunters nursing beers and cleaning weapons scattered around the room, and none of them close enough to see what Ash was looking at. "I'll see what I can find on it, but it might take me a while. Things like this are usually pretty obscure."

Setting his beer down, Sam leaned over Ash's shoulder, examining the man's rendition. "I don't know how much time we have," he pointed out. "This thing keeps moving closer to the Roadhouse. I want to be ready if it tries to drop in." He reached for the bottle again and took a pull. He was still shaky from the interview, hands trembling ever so slightly. He doubted anyone else noticed, but Sam could feel every tremor as though they were a seizure and he clenched his fist around the beer, trying to steady himself.

"Hey, cool it," Dean said, tapping the rim of his own bottle against Sam's. If this thing came by they'd need to be sharp, and Sam would drink whatever was put in front of him. Sam knew that Dean needed him to either slow down, or have something stiff and wait it out.

He gave Dean a look of passing irritation before he added, "I don't know if it's targeting this place because you get so many hunters coming through, or if it's just a coincidence," he admitted, "but coincidence is a pretty loaded concept."

Ash nodded his agreement and shrugged. "I can put a rush on it, but I can't make any promises. I can run it through an image recognition program and see if I get any hits that way, too."

"Thanks, man," Sam sighed and sat back in his chair.

"We'll be ready. Probably wouldn't hurt to look around town and see if there's anybody's seen this thing up and down the road," Dean said, cocking his head to one side. "You know, leg work. Sometimes the answer isn't actually on MySpace or the internet or whatever."

Sam and Ash gave Dean the same look of disbelief.

"What?" Dean lifted the bottle of beer to his lips. "If you two nerds want to look at porn on your computers, I can go ask around myself," he offered, taking a quick sip.

Glaring, Sam stepped away from Ash and crossed his arms. "I'll come with you." He downed the rest of his beer and one gulp and gave Ellen a hopeful look until she gave in and brought him another one. "After I finish this," he added, taking another swig. It wasn't so much that Sam drowned his problems in alcohol, but when he started stressing, he'd forget to measure how much he was imbibing. So it took barely another ten minutes for Sam to drain the bottle. Dean set his own, half-drunk beer beside Sam's empties. "Are we going?" Sam asked and Dean motioned him towards the door.

"I'll call if I find anything," Ash told them, hopping off the barstool and heading into the back room.

* * *

The pair decided to start checking about halfway between the last demon possession site and the Roadhouse. The demon seemed to hopping only short distances, and the area that Dean chose to stop was a little over fifteen minutes away from the last demon sighting and about the same amount from the bar. As the Impala slipped tidily into a parking spot between a minivan and an SUV, Sam's cell phone rang.

Frowning, Sam looked down at his phone, and up at his brother. "It's Ash," he explained in a bewildered tone, sliding out of the car before answering. "Yeah?"

Dean frowned, locking the Impala's doors.

Ash's voice was strained and surprised, as he let his words tumble out. Sam didn't catch them all at first, "Wait, Ash, hold up, what? Are you and Ellen okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," Ash said, and Sam heard the click of the keyboard even over the phone. "We're fine, I just -- Jeezus, I found it. I didn't think we'd find it this fast, you know that never happens, except on stupid CSI or some shit where they get their results in like --"  
"Ash," Sam interrupted again, "What'd you find?"

"The logo! For the Agency," he explained, in hurried tones. "I found the damn thing. It's for a Temp agency called Stellar HR. They were in the news, like, a month ago - that's where I'd seen the logo. They're opening a corporate branch in town, in one of the old warehouses. They're modifying the place now."

Sam murmured an affirmative, fumbling in his pockets for a scrap of paper. "Do you have the address?" He waved off Dean, who had circled the car to lean in as though that would help him overhear Ash's end of the conversation better, urgently asking for an update, and pursed his lips at the phone.

There was a short pause and Sam could hear Ash typing furiously. "Uh, yeah. It's 3756 Stuart's End Drive. Ten minutes south of the Roadhouse, straight down the interstate." Sam could hear the touch of worry creeping into Ash's normally blasé tone. "They started construction a week before the first demonic possession," he added without prompting.

"Great, thanks, Ash. We'll check out the place tonight." Sam hung up the phone, looking down at it, brows knitted.

"Well, what'd he say?" Dean demanded, reaching out for the address.

"I'll tell you in the car. We gotta head down the interstate and check out the place so we know what we're doing later tonight," Sam said. He waited for Dean to unlock the doors before sinking in. Giving his brother the summary didn't take but a fraction of the trip down to the warehouse in question. "If it's related to the company, that could mean that the Agency was ... I don't know, somehow sending the demon further away and hoping it would find its way back to them," Sam suggested as he pulled out their dad's journal, flipping through it for any hint of the logo or any mention of, say, how to make a demon go where you want without large scale summoning mumbo-jumbo. "I don't know why.. maybe if they were trying to get... a particular item or upset a certain business, it'd make sense, but ... this is just... I don't know."

Dean let out an agitated growl as he sped along the highway. "There's no way a corporation could control a goddamn demon, Sam, it doesn't happen. So the Demon is probably targeting the Agency. Maybe it's got a thing for the building they wanna use or something. Hell, we could be dealing with some buried demonic artifact that got uncovered during excavation or something. Maybe it's pissed out it got dug up. Either way, we'll get there, we'll look around, we'll take care of it."

"But, Dean --"

"It's not some big conspiracy theory, Sammy! Demons don't work that way. It's going after them, because they pissed it off. They can't have anything to do with it. I mean, _think_ , little brother."

Sam made a small, irritated scoffing sound and pulled one knee up against his chest, folding his too-long legs.

"And get your feet off the seats."

Sam's lips pursed in irritation again and he stared out the window, making a discontented sound when his brother turned up the cassette player. "That doesn't explain the man with the corporate logo Aaron saw," he finally pointed out, raising his voice a bit so Dean could hear him over the powerful strains of Led Zeppelin ringing out. "If the demon was mad at the company, shouldn't it have attacked the place's employee?" He grabbed at the door handle as the Impala went into a sharp turn onto a new street. Dean ignored the question.

The area looked like a standard warehousing neighborhood, with buildings that were nothing so much as squat, uncolored blocks of concrete. They all had high, dingy windows that would provide no access in or out and were mostly boarded over or shattered anyway. Only a handful were numbered, in large, institutional black writing, and it was almost impossible at first to figure out which was the one they were supposed to be investigating until Dean pointed out the tarpaulins, ladders and paint cans arrayed out in front of one.

On second look, that one was slightly less dirty than the rest of the cubes-- the windows were clean and mostly intact, and the door was slightly ajar. "I think we found our place, Sammy." Dean pulled around the back of the building, to where a few maintenance vans and trucks were parked but unwatched by the no-doubt-locked side-entrance. Most of the vehicles were unmarked, but the van Dean pulled in next to had a large logo on the side, the star chart they'd seen at Aaron's. Shooting his brother a smug grin, Dean killed the engine.

Sam frowned, pulling himself out of the car and scoping out the lot. It was mid-afternoon. There should be people working, going into and out of the vans, the inside of the building should be well-lit. Unless they were all on a mysterious lunch break. He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and suppressed a shiver.

"Come on, Sammy," Dam said, taking the time to check his gun before digging in the glove box for a pair of IDs. He locked the car and moved around to join Sam, giving him a pat on the shoulder to urge him into motion. "Zoning out there, buddy?"

Shaking his head, the younger man said, "Nah, just... got a weird feeling about this place." He squinted at the building as they moved closer to it, habitually taking note of all the (obviously inoperative) security cameras around the building's entrance.

"We're just checking the place out," Dean elbowed Sam lightly "Looks like it'll be easy enough." He shrugged his shoulders a bit, letting his 'game face' fall into place. Once that cool, slightly smug expression that he wore when conning people was lighting up his features, he headed for the door. It swung open readily, smooth and silent, with just the slightest tug. Dean could feel a cold knot tie in his belly, his own instincts reporting the same mysterious something that seemed to have his brother nervous. There was something off about the building. That was no reason for Dean to leave, though, and he gave Sam a mocking bow. "After you, princess," he waved his brother into the darkness.

The building's interior was just as cold and unfinished as the outside, all institutional grey-greens and rusted metal. The lights were working, for a miracle, bathing the place in dull yellow light that cast almost as many shadows as it banished. "Nice place they got here. Found themselves a real good decorator," Dean groused, casting his gaze up and down the hallway. There was a set of double doors at the end of the hallway that looked promising so he glanced at Sam and nodded at them. Sam nodded back, hand dangling with apparent carelessness over his hip, where his knife sheath lay under his jacket.

Sam's long legs took him to the door a few seconds before Dean, but when he reached out to push it open, his hand stopped an inch away, long fingers almost brushing the metal. "What--?" Sam's face scrunched up in confusion and he glanced over at his older brother, withdrawing his hand.

"What's up?" Dean's voice was agitated - Sam rarely just stopped dead in his tracks for no reason. Again, Sam reached out his hand for the door, but his fingers touched a wall of ... well, nothing, first.

"The hell," he blurted, and pushed both his hands, palms-out and flat, against the invisible barrier between he and the door. "Dean, check this out," he said, turning to the side so that his brother to see for himself. It felt hot and oddly craggy to Sam, almost painful to touch the space in front of him.

Dean easily moved ahead of his brother, giving him a questioning look, and had absolutely no difficulty pushing the double doors open. He started to walk through them. "Come on, Sammy, the other one was probably locked."

"I didn't touch the other one," Sam blurted, trying to step after his brother and finding himself trapped - when he tried to move forward he let out a surprised yelp of pain and confusion, stumbling back two steps, where it happened again - at his back, this time. Sam looked down. "I can't move," he said frantically. He wasn't standing on anything, so what the hell was going on?

Consternation passed over Dean's features and he waved a hand through the area in front of Sam, stepping through the invisible wall that seemed to have trapped his brother. "Come on, don't joke around," he said, although Sam never joked like this on a hunting trip. He saved it for when they were safe and secure. "There's nothing here. Let's go." He stepped back again, pushing the doors back open with a hip.

Sam tried to follow, and bit back the sharp sound as he encountered the burning hot wall again. He jerked his hands back up, sure that he would see blisters forming. "I'm not kidding, Dean! I can't move." Their eyes met and, in unison, their eyes were drawn up to the high ceiling, where a familiar binding was meticulously drawn in white on the pale grey ceiling. It didn't stand out very well and Sam tipped his head back, chewing on his lower lip. "That can't be a Solomon's Circle," he said finally, the words catching in his throat. "I'm not a demon."

Dean took a cautious step back, just outside of the circle's range and frowned up at the drawing. "It looks like it, though." He cast a suspicious glance towards Sam, as though he could discern a demon clothing itself in his brother's skin just by staring hard enough.

"I'm not a demon, Dean," Sam said again, stronger. He watched his brother circle him, skeptical. "I'm not," he said again, a scowl settling on his worried face. He looked back up at the Circle, squinting at it in the hopes of seeing a few lines that were different, maybe symbols that weren't for trapping demons but for trapping.. other... things.

"Say it, Sammy," Dean growled, not meaning to sound anywhere near as threatening as he did.

"Wha -- you've gotta be kidding me," Sam blurted, his voice strained.

"Man, you know I hate this, I gotta know."

" _Christo_ , then," Sam snarled, looking back up and trying to gauge the distance between them and the faded mark on the ceiling. Sam knew that even at his height, he couldn't reach it. "We gotta break the circle, Dean. Get me out of this thing," he demanded, tension rising in the way his shoulders were set and making his voice crack. This scared the hell out of Sam, and Dean, well, he wasn't doing much better, watching his brother pace around in his little Solomon cage like so many of the beasts they'd hunted.

"There's a ladder outside," Dean huffed, avoiding Sam's eyes. A smoky whisper of guilt curled through his veins, telling him he should have known that his brother was... his brother. But he shook it off, focusing on the matter at hand. "Hey, Samsquatch, can you tell what the damn thing's drawn in?" He hoped it was chalk. Chalk they could rub off. Paint would be trickier, and a lot more trouble to get rid of.

Letting out an exasperated breath, Sam leaned up on his toes, trying to get a closer look at the design. "No," he answered, rolling his shoulders and forcing down the claustrophobia that seemed about to bubble to the surface. He clutched his fists tightly, tense as a bow string. "You can't go," he protested, "what if someone finds me like this. I can't exactly explain why I can't go anywhere." That wasn't want he was most worried about, though, and they were both perfectly aware of it Someone had drawn the seal, and they would be coming back.

"I have faith in your puppy eyes," Dean joked, but the smile didn't reach his eyes, and tight lines creased his forehead. "You can take care of yourself for five minutes, you pussy."

Sam grumbled something annoyed and his hand pressed against the hidden sheathe. "Then go. Jerk."

"Bitch," Dean responded, turning on his heels.

Sam exhaled, watching his brother go and kicking himself. Dean was right, it'd be just a minute or two, if that. And he'd be fine. Nobody was going to come back. Hell, probably the thing on the ceiling had been drawn by the previous owner and they were getting ready to paint it over. It sure didn't _look_ fresh, anyway. With a groan, Sam put his hands in his pockets.

The double-doors behind him swung open, and he jolted a little, but before he could even turn around and put on his best apologetic smile, there was someone pressed against his back. He opened his mouth to let out a surprised howl, but it choked off into something more like a hiss of pain. He felt a sudden sting in the side of his neck, and his vision blurred.

 _Oh, fuck,_ Sam thought. He was unconscious before his body hit the floor.

* * *

"I knew there was a goddamn ladder out there," Dean growled, dragging it in. "That wasn't so bad, see?" he asked, before looking up at an empty corridor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is currently on hiatus. More chapters to come when the hiatus is lifted.


End file.
